Anglo-Frenchman Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Hi all you IT buffs. I'm about to buy a new PC and wonder what the general opinion is on the the two systems. XP is tried and tested whereas Vista is not. I have a laptop with XP and am unsure whether Vista will take too long to adapt to. Ta, Ged Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holyzeus Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 if your buying new i'd ave thought you've no choice anyway as it will come with Vista Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anglo-Frenchman Posted July 8, 2007 Author Share Posted July 8, 2007 There do still seem to be some PCs available with XP although that may just be a French thing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holyzeus Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Ah, i'm no expert but vista is nice to look at but power hungry you'll need at least 1GB of memory, dont know how its performing, there are bound to be glitches Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbeaumont Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Quite a few people seem to be downgrading from Vista to XP due to Vista being horrifically slow even on powerful machines. The only people I know who've been happy with Vista are very 'light' users, and they're using a horrific amount of computing power for just a bit of web browsing and email... Still haven't tried it myself though - I've heard too many bad reports to want to... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anglo-Frenchman Posted July 8, 2007 Author Share Posted July 8, 2007 Thanks Geoff, thats very interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Humphreys Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Ah, i'm no expert but vista is nice to look at but power hungry you'll need at least 1GB of memory, dont know how its performing, there are bound to be glitches Needs 2GB but better off with 4gb or more. Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciderman Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 And there was me thinking this thread was about winch motors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warthog Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Vista's, biggest pain is checking that software and device drivers are avail/compitable. Plus the 1024mb of Ram that is needed to feed it You can turn the "Fluffyness" off in the settings. That can aid the perfermance. I would try and get an XP Pro edition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbeaumont Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Plus the 1024mb of Ram that is needed to feed it Absolute minimum - more if you want it to behave itself Unless you turn off the flashy interface which is the only change you'll really notice (so you might as well have installed XP in the first place), you'll also need a pretty hot graphics card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edwardatherton Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 I recently got a new PC for work with a 2.4 Gigahertz processor and 1 Gb of RAM and it runs on Vista. We use it for web, email, word processing, Sage (company accounts program) and usual stuff (LR4x4, LRO forum, etc when the boss isn't in!). It has been absolutely fine, no problems at all, and seems to sort itself out quicker/more automatically than XP - what I mean is, it crashes less often and seems to sort out installations/problems itself. Downside is that some programs may not run on Vista. It is not used for anything particularly intensive, so maybe my experience is different than others here, but I quite like Vista! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
western Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 I'm using Vista on new laptop & loaded it onto my desktop too, older XP drivers/programs [EPC for instance] can be loaded using the program compatability wizard similar to the XP version, both a working fine for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RRX Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Go with vista, Been using it and working with it and found it works better than xp on my system. Might as well keep a reasonable pace with technology Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosZuki Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 Join the rebel alliance and go Mac! OSx much nicer all round! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anglo-Frenchman Posted July 9, 2007 Author Share Posted July 9, 2007 I did consider a Mac but i have never used one and really this not the best time to test my learing curve! The PC forms the basis for my work and I need to hit the ground running on this one. I've been looking at a system that has 1024RAM and 250gb hard drive which seems big enough for Vista, it just worries me about the compatability of some of my existing software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dew110CSW Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 If you're wanting to run Vista you basically need a Dual Core Machine and at least 2gb of Ram, otherwise it will be horrifically slow & really not good to use. At work the only XP Machines we have left are Media Center, other than that they have all gone Vista by now. Personally I like it, but I can't see enough advantage over XP to warrant the £80 they currently charge for it. I have XP Home SP2 on a Dual Core and it can stay like that for a good time to come yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BogMonster Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 XP and no plans to change - if it ain't broke don't fix it and better the devil you know! Maybe in a year or two when it is time for a new desktop PC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSG Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 I bought a new laptop for work use back in March and it came with Vista loaded. Its been excellent and I've had no problems with it (touches wood) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exmoor Beast Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 We have just got a new DELL laptop for ma-in-law and its on vista. 'kin nightmare sorting out the broadband due to talktalks hopeless tech support. it took a month to get a new modem out of them. I got it all running at the weekend but it is staggering slow. Looks like I need to turn off the flashy bits from the comments above. I like XP. It works. In hindsight I would be very tempted to go the mac route from the start but we are too 'windows' dependant now Will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciderman Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Has anyone encountered problems when trying to install a printer on Vista , Im having hell of a job trying to get a driver to run both printers ive tried. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonr Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Has anyone encountered problems when trying to install a printer on Vista , Im having hell of a job trying to get a driver to run both printers ive tried. Fista Plus points: Flashy user interface that looks a bit like a Mac Good for light users Minus points: Typically needs double the memory to run at similar speed to XP No drivers available for much 'legacy' hardware (including my year old HP printer, new Sony Video Camera, Buffalo Wireless card) Incompatibility with a fair bit of software including one or two well known cad packages. It's notable that both Dell and Sony are now offering XP downgrades on new PC's There were many similar problems with Win2k and XP when they appeared and they were sorted and forgotten. The trouble is now, I think people are sick of changing for little more than giving MS some more cash with so little in return. This is underlined when you have to upgrade / replace existing hardware and software too. Given a choice, steer clear for the moment. A few months down the line it will be standard and you will not be able to believe how stupid you were for not upgrading sooner - such is the marketing might of Microsoft. Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSG Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 The girlfriend has just bought a new laptop with Vista and it ssems fine (much the same as mine did) with drivers seeming to be ok. Could you get any other drivers from either the Microsoft website or the manufacturer's site? I've done that in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orgasmic Farmer Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 Well I have been stumped with Vista trying to get it to run a wireless network on a freinds laptop. I know its the computer at fault as I turned on my old lappie running windows 2000 and it worked with no probs at all. Just can't get the new one to recognise it. Seems its TOO complicated gotten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aragorn Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 ive installed it on two pc's at home, my desktop is a 5 year old Dual Processor Athlon XP1800 with 2gb of ram and i find it runs pretty well, certainly no slower than XP was on the same platform My gf's machine is a single processor athlon xp2200 with 768mb ram and to be perfectly honest it also runs fine. Her machine doesn have a dx9 graphics card so Aero disabled itself which will undoubtedly help but it really does run very smoothly indeed The driver issues are a little touchy although XP drivers will often work without any problems. I had to change my network card as the Linksys one i had wasnt working properly but other than that it's been fine, it detected my SATA cards and SCSI card streight out the box and i got sound drivers no problem for my 3 year old hercules GTXP sound card Interface is nice and swish, but nothing majorly new to see bar the annoying User Account Control which i disabled Remember XP was released in 2002, its 5 years old, its probably about the longer MS operating system cycle yet and as such we reached a point (around 2004/5) where the hardware was getting faster and faster and the software simply wasnt using it. So im perfectly happy to let that spare computing power go to making it look shiney as its not doing anything else anyway. You really do need a good graphics card with Aero tho, a budget entry level card (or onboard if your that unlucky) today is still slower than a cutting edge card from a few years ago which is why i got myself a radeon 9700pro for buttons off ebay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuko Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 Has anyone encountered problems when trying to install a printer on Vista , Im having hell of a job trying to get a driver to run both printers ive tried. OH YES, and how about Creative Web Cams! Creative still have no drivers for their blasted webcams, so that they would work with Vista. I've been using Vista for nearly a year and I can say that I honestly hate the carp! I have 2Gig 667 DDR2 memory, coupled with a 3Gig P4 HT processor and it's basically useless. I will be downgrading (upgrading in my eyes) to my old operating system XP Pro. Todd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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